1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the activation of an interactive multimedia station by means of a mobile radio terminal.
2. Description of the Prior Art
At present, a mobile radio terminal is principally used as a telephone. The limited number of keys on the keypad of the terminal and virtually permanent recourse to use of the keypad, make the use of the terminal somewhat unergonomic for applications such as consulting information or messages in servers. Furthermore, the display of messages is limited by the small size of the screen of the terminal. For example, for videotelephony by means of the mobile telephone terminal, the small size of the screen thereof would seem to make it difficult to be used. Furthermore, as known, the transmission channel bandwidth in a radiotelephony network is narrow and restricts communications with the mobile terminal to relatively low bit rates, especially for data or video.
Furthermore, international patent application WO/0028762 describes a system for automatically handing-off a telephone call in a seamless manner from a mobile radio terminal that is already communicating via a first radiotelephony network to a base station serving a desktop computer with a fixed telephone. The base station is included in an in-building local radio network connected to the first network by an public switched telephone network (PSTN). When the terminal enters a determined office area around the base station, a proximity sensor senses the presence of the mobile terminal by means of an infrared link or other short-range link. The mobile terminal then sends an identification code to a switching center via the base station in the local network to initiate automatic hand-off of the call in progress to the computer, instead of the mobile terminal. Conversely, the call is handed off from the computer to the terminal when the latter leaves the determined area.
Furthermore, the presence of the handset equipping each street terminal is seen by most users as somewhat unhygienic.
There is therefore a need to provide means of overcoming the above drawbacks to offer mobile users functions that are more ergonomic than those offered by a simple mobile radiotelephone terminal but using the latter to access the functions.
Patent application WO 98/36552 proposes to make available to users carrying mobile radiotelephone terminals an information display unit that is connected to a user interface unit either directly or via a server transmitting text or other visual information. The user interface unit receives commands from a mobile radiotelephone terminal via the radiotelephone network of the terminal in which the terminal is included, identifies commands transmitted by the mobile terminal to the display unit, and also transmits commands to the server to select the information to be displayed on the display unit. Commands are transmitted to the display unit from the keypad of the mobile radiotelephone terminal, or in the form of spoken commands recognized by the mobile terminal.
The display unit disclosed in the patent application previously cited can be used only by a user who has a mobile radiotelephone terminal. An any user is unable to use the display unit since the display unit has no direct control means such as a keypad. Interaction between the user and the display unit is entirely visual.
To access the display unit, a user having a mobile radiotelephone terminal must go to the display unit, which displays a specific telephone number at all times when the unit is not busy, thereby entering the telephone number on the keypad of the terminal. The user interface unit answers the telephone call to the telephone number of the display unit in such a manner as to identify the latter with a view to sending it commands and initializing a session with the server.
This activation of the display unit requires a knowledge of the telephone number of the display unit and consequently a prior knowledge of the location of the display unit by the user, followed by movement of the user to a position facing the display unit so as to be able to read its telephone number thereon. In practice it is impossible for the mobile user to go quickly to a display unit, especially in the case of a mobile user who is located in an area in which the location of display units is unknown.